Guilty
by robinh
Summary: A short fic based on 7.07. Fiona's POV. After Michael's revelation, after his suffering. Spoilers for 7.07, please be warned.


**A/N**: I do not own Burn Notice or its characters. This is a short Fiona POV, post 7.07. Spoilers are present, please be warned. JD killed it this episode. Kill me now, I have no idea why they have to conclude the series, it's in its highest momentum this season.

Thanks for reading. Please tell me what you think.

* * *

It takes her a while to get over her initial shock from his _announcement_ and be able to read the more subtle, and well hidden subtext. But when she does, recover from it that is, and she is able to think coherently about it, and actually understand what he was trying to say, it's already too late.

Way too late.

And the guilt that was pouring out of him in gallons, is nothing compares to hers.

()()()

He calls her to meet him in one of their secret rendezvous points. Their own _privet_ secret rendezvous points, a rendezvous point Sam and Jesse are not privy to. Their own secret haven.

She wants to say no at first, to push back against yet another attempt of his to suck her into his life, but the place, his voice on the phone that has a strange kind of strain in it, and the way he tries to cut things short, and to be as practical about it as possible, get her so worried, the option to refuse him never crosses her mind.

She hangs up the phone, and tucks away her gun, and texts Carlos to say she has to go, and he has to finish the job on his own, or leave it altogether, she doesn't even care. Then she goes to her car, heart beating, palms sweating. Exhausted even before she laid an eye on him.

()()()

She's there and he looks even more broken than the last time see saw him. He's tired, and empty, and despite the impeccable way in which he's dressed, and shaved and... _presentable_, she can clearly see, that like her, he wasn't sleeping at all last night.

It makes her angry in an instance. The shape of him. The way he's running on fumes. Again. Drained, but still focused on the mission. The way he puts the company first, blinded to the high price his body and soul are paying... She'd seen it a thousand times before, saw him tumbling down to the pits of hell. For fuck's sakes, she had to pull him out of there with her own raw bleeding fingers last time, when he was on the verge of insanity, with Anson, and she'd god damn _LEFT_ him for it! and they've lost _EVERYTHING_...

()()()

"There are things that you need to know I didn't think could wait" he says, and her worry level shoots to the roof. She tries not to show it to him, and it doesn't matter, because he hardly pays attention anyway, trying to concentrate on the half sentences that come out of his mouth. She can see that he struggles with the things he's about to say. She knows how he gets when he tries to explain the emotional turmoil he experiences... God, she could have just laughed, at his pathetic attempt in handling this kind of conversation, but the look of a lost child in his eyes... she can hardly speak herself...

He continues to talk about the mission, but soon enough she realizes, it's not really about the mission at all. He talks about choices, and about boundaries, and she thinks to herself that it sounds suspiciously like an apology. Again. _Damn you Michael_, she sighs, _I thought we were already over this_.

"Last night Sonya and I... Fi..." suddenly It doesn't sound like an apology anymore. Because it fucking isn't. She looks at him horrified. It's a... C_onfession_.

()()()

"Why are you telling me this?" she cuts him off, before he'll say anything else, because she really doesn't want to hear anything anymore. Ever. Especially not _this_.

He tries to explain, and it's probably some high and mighty moral reason, she can't really say, because she can't hear anything under the violent ringing in her ears.

She's furious. At him. At his pathetic attempt to be _fair_, to keep her _informed_, to share his burden... He's playing with fire, he's putting himself on the line, and he's breaking _all the rules_ in the process. She storms out, angry, and disappointed, and so overwhelmingly sad, but she's able to wait until he can no longer see her, before she lets herself break down completely.

()()()

It takes her ten minutes when she gets to the car to stop hyperventilating, and regain some control over the violent beating of her heart. His words are still echoing in her head, and she can still see the enormous guilt that was so apparent on his grave face. She looks at her own reflection in the rearview mirror, seeing a tormented, worried and hurt expression as well.

The tears come without any warning. rolling down her cheeks, as she crushes on the steering wheel, unable to stop the sobs from shaking her, for almost twenty minutes.

"Damn you, Michael" she cries into her folded arms "can't you just let me hate you?"

()()()

She can't go back to her apartment. Carlos might be there, all angry and inquisitive. She drives to the beach. She sits on the sand, close to where they were sitting after she was first released from jail. She looks at the ocean, breathing in the familiar smell. The wind is blowing tenderly around her face.

He told her immediately.

First thing in the morning after...

He couldn't live with the knowledge of what he'd done. Couldn't stand the betrayal.

She shakes her head desperately. _But why?_

He told her once, after one of their hook ups, in the early days in Miami, when she lied on top of him, naked, and sweaty, and flushed with the afterglow. She was laughing at him, challenging him to tell her of his sexual exploits after Ireland. Enticing him to tell about sleeping with mysterious _femme fatales_, and sexy spies all around the world. He only smiled, tucking a strand of long auburn hair behind her ear, and shrugged. He told her there are no stories, that he'd been with no one, not since Ireland.

"It's been six years" she frowned then "do you really expect me to believe..." he grabbed her by her shoulders, and crushed her lips to his own, kissing her hungrily, and deliberately, taking her breath away for a few long precious minutes.

"There was no one else" he whispered, when he finally let her go "and there never will be."

Only there was, now.

He slept with his enemy, for the mission, and ruined everything.

She gasps suddenly when she realizes why he told her. Sleeping with Sonya, was the one betrayal he couldn't live with. He told her because this one was too much to bare. He told her because he knew that doing this, will probably be the end of them.

()()()

She lets Sam pull her into action for the rest of that awful, retched day. She has no reserves anymore. She feels like her entire organism had collapsed. She watches Sonya walking into her previous home and taking Michael's belonging with her, defying the sanctity this place once had in her heart. She drives the car. She helps with the tracking. She even lets him pull her into that stupid boat, in a pathetic attempt to intervene in something she already knows is much bigger than them.

She tries not to cry. At least not when Sam can see her. Tries not to be drowned by the bitter taste of guilt that engulfs her. To swallow the pain.

She didn't know how exhausting being guilty can be. Didn't know how you can't even breath half the time, how there's a constant ache in your chest, and in your throat whenever you try to speak.

She sees him being dragged on that island, by Sonya, and all she can feel is deep, suffocating sorrow.

When Sam raises his gun, and she knows it's a lost cause, and she's too worried he'd shoot Michael by accident, it's the only time she is able to make a sound, and keep him from killing her boyfriend.

()()()

She thought she'd already seen the worst of it. Thought she couldn't be surprised anymore.

She was wrong.

Excruciatingly wrong.

When they drop him at Madeline's door step, and the older woman calls them for help, it's the worst of the worst.

He sits on the couch when she enters. Hooked to an IV kit, with Jesse at his side. She hardly has time to move, before he opens his eyes, in an instant, like he knew she was coming even before she knew it herself.

"Michael?" she whispers, dropping on the floor in front of him.

He just cries.

Like he never cried before.

Like he would never stop.


End file.
